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Monday, October 17, 2011

In this kaleidoscopic setting, two unforgettable characters are brought to life. Emilie Guillaudeu, the museum's longtime taxidermist, is horrified by the chaotic change Barnum brings. Ana Swift, a professional giantess, is jaded by a world of gawkers pushing against her, and reacting to her, every day. But they both will endure dramatic change, one against his will, propelled by a paradigm shift happening whether he likes it or not, and the other because she is struggling to survive.

Performance artists Caleb and Camille Fang dedicated themselves to making great art. But when an artist's work lives in subverting normality, it can be difficult to raise well-adjusted children. Just ask Buster and Annie Fang. For as long as they can remember, they starred (unwillingly) in their parents' madcap pieces. But now that they are grown up, the chaos of their ch﻿aos of their childhood has made it difficult to cope with life outside the fishbowl of their parents' strange world.

When the lives they've built come crashing down, brother and sister have nowhere to to go but home, where they discover that Caleb and Camille are planning one last performance-their magnum opus-whether the kids agree to participate or not. Soon, ambition breeds conflict, bringing the Fangs to face the difficult decision about what's ultimately more important: their family or their art.

A mysterious island.

An abandoned orphange.

A strange collection of very peculiar photographs.

As our story opens a horific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that miss Peregrine's children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow-impossible though it seems-they may still be alive.

Arriving in the mail over a period of weeks are taunting letters that end with a simple declaration: "Think of any number...picture it...now see how well I know your secrets." Amazingly, those who comply find that the letter writer has predicted their random choices exactly. For Dave Gurney, just retired as the NYPD's top homicide investigator and forging a new life with his wife, Madeleine, in upstate New York, the letters are oddities that begin as a diverting puzzle but quickly ignite a massive serial-murder investigation.

What policeare confronted with is a completely baffling killer, one who is fond of rhymes filled with threats and warnings, whose attention to detail is unprecedented, and who has an uncanny knack for disappearing into thin air. Even more disturbing, the scale of his ambition seems to widen as events unfold.

Brought in as an investigative consultant, Gurney soon accomplishes deductive breakthroughs that leave local police in awe. Yet, even as he matches wits with his seemingly clairvoyant opponent, Gurney's tragedy-marred past rises up to haunt him, his marriage approaches a dangerous precipice, and, finally, a dark, cold fear builds that he's met an adversary who can't be stopped.